ABSTRACT
Many family law syllabuses will conclude by looking at long-term arrangements for looking after children, namely adoption orders or special guardianship orders. This topic often follows conveniently from child protection as one of the outcomes for a child who is removed from their parents and placed in care might be an adoptive placement. This chapter presents a checklist for students to help them to understand and apply the rules for adoption. These include the following: the age limits on being an adopter, placing a child with consent in an agency adoption, the effects of a special guardianship order, the duty to inform the local authority in a non-agency placement and the effect of placement on parental responsibility, contact, and removal. The chapter also presents a point for common pitfalls, a question on an arrangement under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the answer to this question and the application of the law.
